Response to Chris' Final Presentation

Before watching Chris’s Finals PowerPoint I knew almost nothing about Native Americans other than what I had learned in history classes. Through his use of the painting of Manifest Destiny he shows the hardships that Native Americans have gone through and how they were viewed and treated by Americans in the past. He does a good job displaying the superiority Americans believed they had over native Americans and their culture, religion, and overall way of life. He also uses literature affectively in showing how much the lives of Native Americans were changed so that they were north Americanized. They barely knew their own mother and could not relate to their own rich Native American culture. Ayah talked to her son in the native language, but "when he tried to answer her, he could not seem to remember and he spoke English words mixed with Navajo."(Silko). He describes how difficult it is in modern day to keep up with their heritage, avoid poverty, and avoid drug involvement. He shows this through a news broadcast that displays current life as a Native American and how hard it is because of the pull between modern times and holding onto their ancestry. He truly captures this issue successfully from several different views and allows me to see the regret and hardships they are currently experiencing.